The coronavirus pandemic and collapsing oil prices will slash the oil and gas revenues of vulnerable oil-reliant developing economies by up to 85 percent, the heads of OPEC and the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a joint statement as a growing number of countries are going into lockdown and oil demand is set to take an unprecedented hit. Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the IEA, and OPEC’s Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo spoke on the phone to discuss the current oil market situation and the potential impact of depressed demand and low oil prices on the global economy and on oil-producing nations with vulnerable economies. “[I]f current market conditions continue, their income from oil and gas will fall by 50% to 85% in 2020, reaching the lowest levels in more than two decades, according to recent IEA analysis. This is likely to have major social and economic consequences, […]